Can We Trust Edge Computing Simulations? An Experimental Assessment
Gonçalo Carvalho,
Filipe Magalhães,
Bruno Cabral,
Vasco Pereira,
Jorge Bernardino
Affiliations
Gonçalo Carvalho
University of Coimbra, Centre for Informatics and Systems of the University of Coimbra, Department of Informatics Engineering, Polo II, Pinhal de Marrocos, 3030-290 Coimbra, Portugal
Filipe Magalhães
Institute of Engineering of Coimbra—ISEC, Polytechnic of Coimbra, Rua Pedro Nunes, 3030-199 Coimbra, Portugal
Bruno Cabral
University of Coimbra, Centre for Informatics and Systems of the University of Coimbra, Department of Informatics Engineering, Polo II, Pinhal de Marrocos, 3030-290 Coimbra, Portugal
Vasco Pereira
University of Coimbra, Centre for Informatics and Systems of the University of Coimbra, Department of Informatics Engineering, Polo II, Pinhal de Marrocos, 3030-290 Coimbra, Portugal
Jorge Bernardino
University of Coimbra, Centre for Informatics and Systems of the University of Coimbra, Department of Informatics Engineering, Polo II, Pinhal de Marrocos, 3030-290 Coimbra, Portugal
Simulators allow for the simulation of real-world environments that would otherwise be financially costly and difficult to implement at a technical level. Thus, a simulation environment facilitates the implementation and development of use cases, rendering such development cost-effective and faster, and it can be used in several scenarios. There are some works about simulation environments in Edge Computing (EC), but there is a gap of studies that state the validity of these simulators. This paper compares the execution of the EdgeBench benchmark in a real-world environment and in a simulation environment using FogComputingSim, an EC simulator. Overall, the simulated environment was 0.2% faster than the real world, thus allowing for us to state that we can trust EC simulations, and to conclude that it is possible to implement and validate proofs of concept with FogComputingSim.
